Verse 4:

The Players' Field

We now move into the most explosive period of the radical sixties, between
the years 1966 and 1969. Where only a few years before the social and
political system had been solid (if a bit petrified) and largely unchallenged,
by this time it had begun to come considerably undone; an unpopular,
ill-defined
war in Southeast Asia only served to fan the flames. Increasingly, the
established American culture itself was being viewed as an enemy in
need
of transformation, and this generation responded by growing more and
more revolutionary. And once again the music was mirroring these changes,
as
the Beatles—influenced by the emerging Counterculture and their
own forays into eastern mysticism and drugs—began to significantly
alter the shape of rock 'n' roll, much as Dylan had before them; they
were, in fact, replacing Dylan as the voice of their generation.

• • •

As the sixties revolution gathered momentum, the youth movement itself
also gathered more players, as the more organized and pragmatic unity
of the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left (largely represented
by the Students for a Democratic Society [SDS],
and more
or
less
symbolized
by Bob Dylan in verse 3) began fragmenting into the Women's Rights, Black
Power, Antiwar and Counterculture movements; the Progressive Labor and
Revolutionary Youth Movements; as well as their militant sub-factions:
the Black Panthers, The Weathermen, Up Against the Wall, Motherfuckers
(yes, that was their name)—all seeking, to one degree or another,
to influence the course of American culture. But of all of these it
is
the Counterculture that looms largest in our memory. Though they did
not achieve much politically, their style of dress and behavior were
enormously
influential, as were the drug, sexual and spiritual freedoms they espoused—all
of which were in-your-face affronts to the more staid, traditional values
of the status quo. And it was their philosophies of peace and brotherly
love—vague and ill-formed as they were—that seemed to best
characterize this generation at this time, at least in the eyes of
the
general public.

In light of the growing conflicts of this period a football field is
an appropriate setting, a battlefield on which the radical youth culture
players and the forces of the establishment clash. But once again we
find the songwriter mixing his metaphors, using the “marching band” to
symbolize both the Counterculture (the Beatles) and the armed civil militia.